


Phantom Pains

by storm_warning



Series: a head full of phantoms; a fistful of threads [1]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Banter, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Mind Control, Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 7, Well - Freeform, but the good kind. i promise you this, but you'll see!, good lord this fic is self indulgent, he kind of does, paper bag labled dove sandwich please eat, so much as he is just a bastard and things happen around him, tags may be updated in future as i remember to add things, this is not a "maul redemption fic"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29713026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_warning/pseuds/storm_warning
Summary: Her brain screams at her to ask, ask, where is Anakin, who is Anakin; is he going to be okay; are any of them going to be okay; he's her big brother, please, she can't lose him again, she can't--But--There's something she needs to know more. Something that slides cold and even down her spine, like an answer she already knows.Like eyes on her back."Tell me who Darth Sidious is," she demands, and Maul's grin is all teeth.(Or, a supremely unorthodox way of saving the galaxy from ruin; or, the season 7 mandalore teamup AU we need but don't deserve)
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CC-1010 | Fox & CT-7567 | Rex, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker, Darth Maul & Ahsoka Tano, Darth Maul & CT-7567 | Rex, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: a head full of phantoms; a fistful of threads [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2183673
Comments: 12
Kudos: 107





	Phantom Pains

**Author's Note:**

> this fic. where do i even START with this fic
> 
> first and foremost, as many thanks as i can physically fit in my tiny little mortal body go to my good friend Tem (theshoutingslytherin here on Ao3! wink) for helping me mold this into something at least VAGUELY readable, you are fucking amazing and i owe you the world for your help gods bless
> 
> alright what else do i have to say. this fic was the product of me scrolling through the tag one fateful day and, upon finding a lack of satisfactory maul-ahsoka teamup au fics, deciding to write the damn thing myself. about two months later, give or take, of which encompassed a five-day hospital visit (i'm fine now dont worry) and several following weeks of being hopped up on steroids (all throughout which i absolutely fucking refused to stop writing for anything) later, i ended up with This Thing. safe to say this fic comes from the heart for better or for worse and i sincerely hope you enjoy reading it as much as i did creating it :'3
> 
> (additionally, a special shoutout to the clone wars channel of hdtf hell for fueling my brainrot as always i love ya guys)

Muffled explosions burst outside the windows, illuminating the shadowy throne room with murky, distilled flares of light. Maul's force signature drips with a volatile mix of emotions, hate and pain and fear. Ahsoka has to stop herself from baring her teeth.

"Look at them," Maul says from where he stands at the window, face lit by the chaos, hands clasped behind his back, "so blissfully ignorant."

"Can you tell me what this is all about?" Ahsoka snaps, "Or would you rather save it for the council?”

Maul lets out a slight chuckle. "Oh, no, no. You are the one that I wish to speak with." His voice peaks and dips as he speaks, like he's not timing his breaths correctly; the same unsettling, off-balance timbre he'd had in the tunnels earlier. "Were you not cast out of your Order?"

Ahsoka stiffens. "I left voluntarily."

"Yes," Maul hisses, "but you were  _ motivated _ to leave by the hypocrisy of the Jedi Council."

Ahsoka opens her mouth. Closes it. It disturbs her to agree with him on something. She’s helping the Jedi on this mission, yes, but she can't just ignore that she's not one of them anymore; not by a longshot. 

Maul lets out a breath, pensive. "We were both tools for greater powers."

Ahsoka takes a step, then two steps forward, still a shuttle-length away from him. Her voice is hard. "I am here to bring you to justice."

"Justice," Maul bites, pitched with bitter amusement, "is merely the construct of the current power base. A base, which, according to my calculations, is about to change."

"And Darth Sidious is behind it?"

"He is behind  _ everything _ ." Maul's eyes flick around the room, as if the Sith Lord himself might be watching them from some dark corner. "In the shadows, always. But soon, very soon," he breathes out, unsteady with fear, "he will reveal himself."

Ahsoka pushes down every instinct telling her to run, to fight, and takes a gamble. "With your help, the Jedi can stop Sidious before it's too late."

"Too late for  _ what _ ? The Republic to fall?" Maul snarls back, bristling with incredulity and desperation. "It already has, and you just can't  _ see it _ . There is no justice, no law, no  _ order _ , except for the one that will replace it! The time of the Jedi has  _ passed _ . They cannot defeat Sidious." 

He inhales, his voice taking on a lower tone. More pointed, more dangerous. "But together, you and I  _ can _ ."

Ice floods Ahsoka's veins. Part of her mind still screams to fight, to flee. To take action.  _ Not safe here.  _

But another part tells her to stay. To lie through her bared teeth, and exploit this for all it's worth.

_ Almec is dying, choking out desperate words. "Maul had a-- a vision. A dream." _

"Every choice you have made has led you to this. Moment." 

Maul's eyes glow golden in the half-light. He reaches out a hand, upturned, beckoning. It might be the door to her coffin. It might be the key to everything. 

A muted shockwave booms outside, firelight flaring out across the throne room for a single, still moment. She feels the impact coming a second before it happens. 

The window  _ shatters _ , shards, smoke, and embers swirling across the room, lofted on the sudden breeze rushing in. Gunfire echos in the distance, shouted orders and stifled screams scattered among it. 

Ahsoka doesn't move. Neither does Maul. 

If his plan really works, they could stop all of it. The war she'd lived and breathed since she was fourteen, finally set to rest. Anakin could leave the order, if he wanted, be with Padmé. Rex--  _ all _ the clones-- could know a life that wasn't steeped in death. Obi-Wan... well, she's not entirely sure what his plans are after the war, but he'd have a  _ chance _ . They all would.

Ahsoka doesn't know if it's an honest offer. Maul might put a saber through her back five minutes in; might sell her out to the very same Sith Lord he's claiming he wants to defeat. It's not an offer any Jedi in their right mind would take. 

But it's a chance. 

And Ahsoka is no Jedi. 

"I'll help you," she tells him. Maul's eye-ridges lift slightly. They both know a  _ but _ is  coming.

"But you must answer one question."

"You have but to ask," Maul breathes, quickly, pressingly. His eyes are hopeful, but they're not out of the battlefield yet. 

Ahsoka opens her mouth again, a million possibilities on the tip of her tongue, a million answers she desperately wants.

_ "The name came to him." _

_ "What name?" _

_ Almec looks up at her, desperation in his eyes. "Skywalker." _

_ \--Maul is in the tunnels, pacing, stalking. She holds her ground. _

_ "I was certain that Kenobi would have come himself. Perhaps bring his loyal foal-- Skywalker, was it?" _

Her mind spins. The chosen one. That must be it, it has to be. It  _ can't  _ be. She can't afford to waste her chance. Not now, not like this. 

Then she'll take the backup route for that, shutter it off in her mind for the moment. Contact Anakin herself, when he's done with the mission, when they make it off-planet. 

When they--  _ Kriff _ . She's really doing this, isn't she?

She shakes it off. Can't afford to waste her question. Can't afford to lose her chance. Her brain screams at her to ask,  _ ask _ , where is Anakin,  _ who _ is Anakin; is he going to be okay; are any of them going to be okay; he's her big brother, please, she can't lose him again, she can't-- 

But there's something she needs to know more. Something that slides cold and even down her spine, like an answer she already knows.

Like eyes on her back. 

"Tell me who Darth Sidious is," she demands. 

Maul's grin is all teeth.

* * *

Rex's head pounds as he's thrown to the ground by a sudden blast. 

He blinks hard, once, twice, then hauls himself up and presses on.  _ Without Maul in custody, this could all fall apart quickly. _ Ahsoka will hold her ground, but he can only hope she manages to pull off bringing him in alone. 

A blaster-bolt whiffs by his head. Too close. He fires back, not sparing the time to watch the Mandalorian drop to the ground.

He’s still keeping one eye on the exterior of the throne room, as if it might make a difference whether he sees what happens between them or not.  _ Maul won’t go down without a fight. You know this. Eyes on the battle, vod’ika, _ a voice that sounds distantly like Cody says in the back of his mind.  _ You saw what he did to Jesse _ , he shoots back, and promptly shakes the thought off. No time to argue with himself now. Focus.

As if on cue, his comm beeps. 

“Commander.” Rex ducks behind a supply crate, temporarily shielded from the surrounding firefight.

“I need backup, Rex. I’ll explain when you arrive.” Even through the tinny receiver, there’s something distinctly off about Ahsoka’s voice, and the transmission cuts out with a sharp crackle of static before he can respond. The tracking beacon on his vambrace activates with a faint  _ ping _ .

Kriff. Okay.

Rex sets his sights on the location pointed out by the beacon, which appears to be on one of the rooftops surrounding the throne room. One of them must have been pressed to retreat; he hopes it was Maul. His jetpack fires up with a familiar rumble-hum and he launches himself into the air, weaving between stray blaster-bolts until he’s able to tuck and roll into a neat landing on the roof. 

He sees his Commander first. Her sabers are turned off, clipped to her belt, which pricks unsettlingly at his instincts. Then, he sees--

"Rex! It's alright. He's on our side," Ahsoka says, arms held out in a placating gesture.

"--For now, anyway," she tacks on, which does nothing to slow Rex's racing heartbeat. He narrows his eyes, sucking in a breath, and keeps his pistols pointed solidly at their target. 

Darth Maul, for his part, looks bored more than anything. 

"Oh, please," he scoffs. "If I wanted this one dead, I wouldn't have wasted so much  _ time _ ." 

His words curl into an impatient snarl at the end, and they seem to snap his Commander into action again. " _ Rex _ ," she presses, " _ Please _ , let me explain. We don't have much time."

Rex stares at her for a long moment, mind abuzz with questions, then lowers his pistols, glaring daggers at Maul as he begrudgingly holsters them. 

"This better be good, Commander," he deadpans. 

Ahsoka lets out a breath. “The Chancellor is Darth Sidious. He's been playing both sides of the war from the beginning-- yes, I know,  _ don't _ interrupt me-- and he’s been grooming Anakin to be his apprentice. Maul has agreed to help us defeat him--”

“I agreed to help  _ you _ defeat him,” Maul cuts in, distaste clear on his face. “ _ You’re _ the one who insisted on bringing your…  _ backup _ along.” He says  _ backup _ like someone might say  _ di'kut _ or  _ poodoo _ .

Ahsoka turns to glare daggers at him. “Rex is one of the best soldiers I know. He’ll be a useful asset to your plan, and--”

“--And you refuse to leave without him, yes, yes, it’s all very touching. My ship is  _ waiting _ ,” Maul snaps, aggravated. “If your ‘useful asset’ would care to get  _ moving _ ?”

Ahsoka turns back to Rex. He looks at her helplessly. He’s trying to breathe evenly, but can’t get the rhythm quite right-- it’s taking up more of his focus than it should be. The ground spins under his feet.  _ The Chancellor. Sith Lord. Skywalker. _ Right. Fine. Keep breathing. Plan of action. Maul seems to have one-- that’s good enough. His pulse spikes again, and he grits his teeth. That’s good  _ enough _ .

“Well, let’s go, then, Commander,” he hears himself say, clipped and professional. It barely sounds like him, but it’s a strategy he’s long curated. He knows how to be a soldier. A cheap shield, maybe, but it’ll get the job done.

“You’ll come?” Ahsoka says, the tiniest shred of hope sparking in her eyes. 

Rex takes a moment to pretend like he wouldn’t follow her to the ends of the galaxy, if only she were to ask. He shrugs. 

“Looks like we don’t have much of a choice.”

Ahsoka nods, determined, and follows Maul up into the iron rafters.

Rex creeps along the scaffolding a few paces behind her. Where the two force-users’ steps are balanced and easy, his feet move with a practiced caution. 

Maul leads them through the precarious metal maze up to a thick glass roof, and Rex nearly startles when he unceremoniously ignites one half of his lightsaber with a familiar hiss, swinging it up through the glass in an arc that sends a rain of glistening shards scattering down around them. 

Without a word, he leaps up through his newly-created entrance, landing out of sight on the flat topside. Ahsoka jumps up after him, and Rex is left to activate his jetpack to end up neatly beside them. 

_ Di’kutla _ force users. The cold night breeze seeps through the cracks in his armor, chilling him. 

Maul glances around restlessly until his eyes fall on something in the distance, and Rex follows his gaze to see a Mandalorian gunship in the distance. He’d said he had a ship waiting. Right. Apparently  _ waiting _ meant  _ a hundred meters away and closing,  _ but Rex supposes he can’t complain. It’s a ship. It’ll get them to Coruscant.

The thought of what exactly they’re  _ doing _ right now threatens to overwhelm him again; he shoves that particular tangle of emotion to the side. Instead, he turns to Ahsoka-- and stops short. He can’t press her for details now, in front of Maul. But he also can’t help but wonder what  _ happened _ between them for her to turn around and trust his word like this. For all  _ he _ knows, Maul could be lying through his teeth, and he’ll lead them onboard just to fly them directly into a trap.

He casts a glance at Ahsoka, who’s watching the approaching ship with a laser focus. Her eyes widen, and Rex snaps his eyes to follow hers up to the shuttle. 

“ _ No! _ ” Maul yells, a split-second before the blast hits.

Rex ducks his head away, blinded by the light of the explosion, and braces against the following shockwave. Shrapnel splits the roof around them; there’s a jarring cacophony of noise as twisted chunks of the ship violently crash through the glass. 

“Commander!” He calls, when the noise has abated enough to think. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Rex,” Ahsoka responds, straightening up and brushing flakes of debris off her shoulders, “but I think our ride is dust.”

“One of  _ your _ gunships just shot it down,” Maul bites out, a barely-repressed snarl shadowing his words. “I hope you have a ship to spare, Lady Tano.”

“We could take one of our ships from the dock,” Rex cuts in before she can respond, “They’re not left manned, as long as we can get there quickly.”

Wait, no,  _ kriff _ . Stealing a  _ gunship _ now? Being around a Sith Lord for this long is having an effect on him.  _ Focus _ , he tells himself. Just get the mission done. Everything else can wait.

Before Maul can respond, a second flash of light falls upon them-- this time not from an explosion, but from the cold, blinding floodlights of a Republic gunship.

Rex looks at Ahsoka, who turns to glance back uncertainly at Maul, who raises an expectant eyebrow at Rex. Well,  _ kriff _ . 

He brings a hand up to his helmet comm and taps into contact with the shuttle pilot. 

“We’ve got everything under control here, trooper,” he says with as much authority as he can muster. “Air support is unneeded presently. We’re taking our prisoner to-- to the pre-approved location.”

“Pre-approved location? I wasn’t made aware of any specified pick-up point, sir,” the pilot crackles back to him.

“Highly confidential, trooper. Only myself and the Commander were briefed on it.”

“...Are you  _ sure _ ? Sir.” The pilot’s voice is uncertain. 

“I--  _ yes _ , I’m sure. We’ve got it covered. Now carry on, trooper. That’s an order.”

Ahsoka ignites one of her lightsabers and points it at Maul helpfully, who rolls his eyes with a long-suffering expression and holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Alright then, Commander,” the pilot finally says, and they’re swallowed back into darkness as the ship swivels away.

Rex lets out a breath.  _ Real subtle, vod’ika, _ he can almost hear Cody say. Out of the two of them, Rex has always been the far worse liar.

“Well  _ done _ , clone, you’ve made us even  _ more _ suspicious,” Maul says, dripping with sarcasm.

Ahsoka scowls at him, returning her ‘saber to her belt. “They’ll stay off our backs for a while. Let’s get to the docks.”

“Yes, Sir,” Rex replies on instinct, and they set off toward the edge of the roof closest to the docking bay, Maul stepping with his oddly-measured grace across the splintered glass, Ahsoka following loosely in his path. Rex looks at the fractures spanning below his feet for a long moment and opts to ignite his jetpack again, soaring over their heads to balance on the very edge of the roof. 

He surveys the scene below him. Their forces-- his  _ vode _ \-- are still scattered throughout the streets, clashing in firefights with Maul’s soldiers that spark hot and fast, like a flashbang. Distant clips of gunfire and yelling echo through the scaffold-architecture of the Mandalorian city, and broken snippets of radio chatter filter through his comm. 

He peers past it all, to the port where their gunships initially landed in. A few of them are still there, empty of men for now. Perfect. 

He jolts as a figure steps up beside him. It’s Maul, looking out upon the battlefield with something akin to hunger in his eyes. Ahsoka follows, settling on Rex’s other side. 

The fire reflects off her headpiece, casts her in deep orange. “If we want to get there as quickly as possible, we’ll have to go through the streets. Maul’s followers are still going to be targeting Rex and I.”

“And I suspect your men won’t exactly be happy to see me,” Maul chips in.

“No. Which means...”

Rec unholsters his pistols. “We fight,” he finishes for her. 

Ahsoka nods, once, and he hears the telltale  _ hum-swish _ of Maul’s lightsaber igniting. One side, then the other. 

“Try to keep casualties to a minimum,” he says to Maul, probably in vain. “Those  _ are _ my brothers you’re cutting down out there.” 

Maul just gives him a  _ look _ , the kind of look Rex assumes only Sith Lords can truly pull off. And maybe General Skywalker, when he gets  _ really _ pissed about something. 

_ Skywalker _ . Rex shoves that train of thought into a very tight box before it has the chance to spiral.  _ Later _ .

“My condolences,  _ truly _ ,” Maul sneers at him, snapping him out of his thoughts. 

“Let’s just get this over with,” Rex sighs, in lieu of an actual response. 

Ahsoka is the first to move, jumping off the roof-edge and sliding down the diagonal sheet of metal that proceeds the drop, dragging her sabers through the material to slow her descent. Maul leaps after her, and after one final moment of wondering what the  _ kriff _ he’s doing, Rex follows. 

* * *

The second Ahsoka’s feet hit the ground, she runs; weaving in and out of supply crates and under highways, deflecting bolts with her sabers, always avoiding the center of the fight.

Maul takes no such precautions, cutting down whatever’s in his path with little distinction. Though, he does shove a few of her men out of the way with the Force rather than run them through. Huh. She blinks, momentarily distracted. As unlikely as it is that Rex might’ve gotten through to him, she supposes she’s received more than her fair share of unexpected developments today.

Rex himself is tailing the two of them, intermittently igniting his jetpack to leap from crate to crate, to overpass, to crate again, providing them with cover-fire along the way. Obviously, he refuses to shoot at his own men, but he lays a few warning shots at some of their feet when they begin to close in on Maul. She sends him a silent thanks as she rushes forward. Rex is a good man, and a good friend; she owes him the galaxy for agreeing to come with them on such short notice. 

A figure  _ thunks _ down in front of her, and she screeches to a halt, sabers at the ready. It’s the leader of Maul’s forces, his helmet wrought in a clear parody of the former Sith’s horn-crowned visage.

He fires at her, once, twice, and both bolts she sends scorching back into the ground at his feet. His focus shifts quickly, though.

“Lord Maul!” He cries, relieved. “Thank the gods you’ve arrived-- our forces are falling, we need your support!” 

Maul hums, disinterested, spinning his saberstaff in one hand.

“Hm. I think not,” he replies lightly, baring his fangs in a sardonic sneer. “Die well, Mandalorian.” 

He turns to Ahsoka, gesturing toward the man with a hand. “Your honor, Lady Tano.”

Ahsoka scowls at him, anger and indignity welling in her gut. So this is how it’s going to be. 

After a long moment of hesitation, she lunges forward across the gravel, ignoring the Mandalorian’s strangled noise of surprise and deflecting shot after shot until she manages to cut inside his defenses. Her blades slide into him like hot butter, and he chokes, feeble, and slides limp to the ground. 

Ahsoka shudders, suddenly cold. She hates doing that. 

“Impressive skill,” Maul says from behind her. She opens her mouth to snap something back, but instead her gaze strays to behind him, where Rex is chasing after a few of his brothers who are closing on them. He’s shouting something, but Ahsoka can’t make out what. 

On pure instinct, she launches past Maul’s shoulder, knocking aside a blaster bolt flying for his head. There’s a split-second pause, and then she hears an arcing buzz behind her and realizes with a jolt that he’s just done the same for her. Rex sprays more warning shots at the clones’ feet, ignoring their surprised yells, and skids to a halt beside them.

And just like that, the three of them are oddly, inexplicably fighting back-to-back, covering each other's flanks as they struggle to keep a quick pace down the street. 

Ahsoka swings her ‘saber up, and a bolt bounces off of it, deflected from the path it had been cutting toward Maul's back. 

"You're lucky Anakin didn't show up," she snipes between breaths, with a rush of odd confidence, "The way you're fighting, you wouldn't have lasted long."

Maul snarls, his blades singing in the air. "You have Kenobi's arrogance."

Ahsoka grins, baring her fangs. "You'll find I have many qualities for you to dislike."

“Alright,  _ can _ it, you two,” Rex snaps, which only makes Ahsoka grin wider. 

“Oh, you’re right, Rex, I’m sorry for interrupting your unbroken peace and quiet,” she jabs back, right before another shell hits and they all brace for a moment.

“Look, when your back is to a kriffing Sith and a Jedi, you don’t--”

“Not a Jedi,” Ahsoka cuts him off, and ducks behind a storage crate for cover.

“No longer a Sith,” Maul growls, and effortlessly cuts through a clone who gets too close to him. Ahsoka has her shields up, yet she still feels more than sees Rex flinch. 

She pauses to gather a few scraps of  _ calm, _ pushing them hastily through the Force, and is rewarded with the knowing glance he throws back at her. Good; they need all the focus they can get. 

She ducks back out of her temporary cover, springing into action once more and leading their progress down the street.

Move, defend, move, move again, cover Rex while he shoots a Mandalorian soldier, cover Maul while their own forces shoot at  _ him _ . Ahsoka is panting with exhaustion when they finally make it to the ship dock, skidding to a halt and pressing her back to the side of one of the gunships.

“Here,” Rex calls, holding his bracer up to the ship’s side door and sliding it open when the access code is accepted. 

Ashoka scrambles inside, beelining for the cockpit. Rex slides into the seat next to her, and she looks back to see Maul deflecting the last few bolts that make it through the doors before Rex slams the button to seal them closed. 

She turns back to the controls as they lift off, and distantly hears Maul shut off his saberstaff. And then, but for the muffled hum of the ship’s engines, there is quiet. 

She almost shivers under the weight of it, cold uncertainty creeping through her in waves. It was easier before, when she was pumped full of adrenaline, barely scraping by the scorching blast of a bolt, all concrete and rubble in a firefight. That, at least, she knows. 

Now, mind spinning in the momentary peace of their takeoff, there’s only a blinding, overwhelming sense of unease. The Force is terrifyingly precarious, balanced like a planet on top of a needle, and they’re flying straight into the heart of it. Rex’s signature buzzes with shared apprehension beside her, and even Maul’s is flickering with a collection of barbed spikes she knows well by now is fear.

The battle is over, for now; but it is only just beginning. 

* * *

Maul inhales. Exhales. His saberstaff is shut off, the ship doors closed and blank in front of him. His mind is still alight with the bitter, familiar thrill of battle. 

“Course set to Coruscant,” the clone says from the cockpit.

“Good,” he replies, and pulls out a small holo-emitter from his pocket, which he holds out and switches on to display a detailed projection of Coruscant.

They will need to land the ship somewhere close to the Senate Building, but not so close that they’re intercepted before they can reach--

Reach  _ him _ . Maul’s grip tightens on the emitter until he’s just short of crushing it. It’s all that he wants. It is all that he deserves. He will not survive this. 

His Master is strong, far too strong, and Skywalker is yet stronger. If Maul is fortunate enough to make it through the first fight, the aftermath will surely be his ruin.

He will not survive this. His Master will be dead and rotting. It is all that he deserves. It is all that he wants. 

It is all that he wants. 

The clone gets up from his seat in the cockpit, and Maul is jolted unkindly out of his thoughts.

“I  _ hope _ ,” the clone bites out, “for your sake, that you’re willing to give me a little  _ enlightenment _ on this grand plan you claim to know so much about. You’ve asked us to turn on our own men for this.”

“Patience, clone,” Maul snaps back, tired of this particular routine. “I intended to give out the necessary information to you in time, of course.”

“Then  _ give  _ it,” the clone says, clearly running thin on patience. Motivated by loyalty, it seems. Somewhat admirable; unfortunately for him, it will probably just get him killed.

Maul waits until Tano has risen from her seat to stand by the clone’s shoulder before moving the holographic diagram to rest between them all, bathing the hold in a faint blue glow.

Then, filled with something that hangs, precarious, in the deadspace between terror and reverence, Maul  _ explains _ .

It’s almost cathartic, after so many years, to pull apart the threads of his Master’s plan for such an audience, masterfully woven like fine spider-silk throughout the galaxy’s reaches-- the glorious payoff of several lifetimes spent planning the Republic’s demise. 

Tano and her commander are far from subtle about their unfolding horror. When he reaches the matter of the control chips, the clone jerks forward, eyes widened; something like anger or panic is splayed across his face and through the Force, surrounding him like a whirlwind. Tano has to place a restraining hand on his shoulder; they seem to have a silent, vicious conversation before he begrudgingly cedes and they both turn back to him. Maul raises an eye-ridge before continuing-- hopefully neither of them will stray  _ too _ far out of line going forward. 

The silence rings in his ears after he concludes, broken only by the hum of the ship’s engines, and the carefully measured rhythm of two people fighting very, very hard to keep their breathing steady. 

Maul knows the second sound all too well; he’s been hearing it from his own lungs all his life.

Tano is the first one to move, breaking her iron grip on the commander’s shoulder to bring a thoughtful hand to her chin. Another infuriating mannerism picked up from Kenobi, Maul notes.

“So. We make it to Coruscant, we kill the-- kill Sidious before he can activate any of the chips, and then… what? Get executed for treason? How do we know that the Council will even  _ believe _ us?”

“What becomes of you after my Master’s defeat is not my concern,” Maul says flatly.

The clone turns to Tano, eyes lighting up with an idea. “If I could get through to the Coruscant guard, convince them that what I’m saying is true--”

Tano looks up. “You really think that would work?”

“I don’t know. Commander Fox is-- is a good man, but he’s… by-the-books. He might report me straight to the Chancellor if I say anything too out of line.”

“Can you  _ try _ ?”

“If you jeopardize this mission, their blood will be on your hands,” Maul points out. Maybe the clone’s sense of loyalty will keep him in line. (That said, though, having the guards on their side  _ could _ be useful. Maybe he has a point.)

“You think I don’t  _ know _ that?” The clone snaps, taking a step forward. His voice is stretched taut, a wire about to snap.

One corner of Maul’s mouth twitches into a snarl, but before he can respond, Tano steps in between them, putting a hand up to the clone’s chestplate. 

“Enough,” she snaps. “Rex, I’m going to go to the cockpit and see if I can get you a secure channel to Commander Fox. And  _ you, _ ” she turns to Maul, eyes hard, “if you’re lying, about  _ any _ of this--” 

“I’m not,” Maul interrupts. 

Tano glowers at him for another moment before turning away.

That leaves only one pair of eyes on him. He flicks his own up to meet them, unimpressed. “And what about you, clone? Any threats to make?”

The clone considers that for a moment, before straightening and folding his arms. “Actually, I want to know something.”

Maul raises his eye-ridges. “Ask.”

The clone unfolds his arms again, jabbing an accusing finger at Maul. “What exactly do  _ you _ get out of this?”

“What, out of the continued function and stability of the known galaxy?” Maul scoffs. “Oh, I  _ wonder _ .”

“Don’t play dumb. I refuse to believe you’d be here if you didn’t have some other stake in this. So spit it  _ out _ ; what do you get out of it?”

Maul opens his mouth, to say something to the effect of  _ my revenge, what do you think, _ or  _ a flying chance at surviving until the end of the tenday, you imbecile,  _ or  _ you’re one to talk, clone, you only got here following orders, you’re letting yourself be pulled from place to place like a worthless puppet-- don’t you hate yourself for that? _ Something harsh and deflective that will move them on to other subjects, other arguments. 

“He killed my brother,” is what comes out instead, with all the wrong inflection and far, far too quietly.

Surprise shoots through the Force, quickly replaced by sympathy and-- and  _ pity. _ Twice as quickly Maul lashes out against it, wreathing himself in the familiar spikewire of hatred until all else fades, until he’s left with nothing but a faint residue of disgust in his mouth. Indignity, that’s what it is. Humiliation. 

He makes to turn away, put what meager space he can between them, but--

“I understand,” the clone says, sounding surprised at his own words. Something halfway between revulsion and shame creeps up Maul’s spine. _ He doesn’t. It doesn’t matter. Shut up. Savage wouldn’t have-- _

“ _ Do _ you, now,” Maul snaps, pouring enough vitriol into the words to drown out anything left cowering underneath them three times over. 

For a moment, the clone seems at a loss for what to say. Then he collects himself, straightening. 

“Knowing what that--” he spits a few unfamiliar curses, “--did to my brothers…” he shakes his head, eyes far-away. “I wouldn’t  _ hesitate _ to put a blaster bolt through his head.”

Maul relaxes in increments. Violence, at least, is stable ground.

“Then on that, we agree,” he says, as level as he can, and watches as the commander gives him one final look he can’t quite parse before leaving to join his not-quite-Jedi in the cockpit.

Wordlessly, Maul turns back to the quiet darkness of the hold. 

* * *

Rex clambers into the cockpit gratefully, unsure of what exactly  _ that _ conversation was. He files it neatly into the quickly-growing list of things he’ll think about  _ after _ Sidious is dead.

Ahsoka doesn’t look at him as he sits down, her eyes glued to the holopad she’s tapping at.

“I’m almost done here, Rex,” she says, and after a stretch of silence she looks up at him.

“Sir,” he says with a sharp nod, snapping to attention. Kriff. He hadn’t actually responded out loud at first, had he.

She looks at him for a moment longer, a little more sadness in her eyes than there probably should be. “Are you okay?’

“I--” Rex swallows.  _ Not now. Not here _ . “I’m fine, Commander. Let’s get this over with, yeah?”

She holds his gaze, searching his face for something. 

“...Yeah,” she finally says, and turns to the console, only to turn right back again and hand him the holopad.

“Here. Secure channel straight to Commander Fox. It’ll make things a lot easier if we have the Guard in our corner. I’m counting on you, Rex.” She gives him another look, like she wants to say more, but can’t. 

Rex nods, and she slips out of her seat, moving towards the back of the ship to give him what privacy she can. She lays a hand on his shoulder as she passes, then she’s gone.

Rex stares at the holopad in his hands for a long moment. 

He hasn’t spoken to Fox outside of brief mission reports since-- 

Since Fives died. 

Rex had tried to look at Fox the same since-- he really, really, had. He can still picture the harsh white light reflecting off of Fox’s visor as he’d stood over Fives’ body, can still see the curl of white smoke rising from his  _ vod’ika _ ’s chest.

But the fate of the galaxy is at stake, so he forces those thoughts from his mind and presses the call button.

The sight of a familiar, red-painted bucket sends a rush of both relief and anxiety through him. Fox is-- fine. He hasn’t visibly changed. 

“Rex. Why are you contacting me?” Fox asks, direct as always.

Rex’s mouth goes very dry. “Are you alone?” He says, void of formality, and something in his face or voice must tip Fox off to-- something, because he goes still.

“Hold on,” he says, and the holo disappears, leaving Rex to count the seconds until it pops back up again.

Ninety-three of them later, Fox flickers back into view and takes his bucket off. It’s been a long time since Rex has seen him face-to-face like this, but he looks just the same as ever-- his grey-streaked hair immaculately regulation-cut, face carefully neutral save for the worried crease between his eyebrows. 

“What’s going on,  _ vod _ ?” Fox says, voice level in a way that means he’s hiding concern. “You’re on assignment to capture Maul, aren’t you?”

“I--” Rex starts, and then stops again. Fox is going to think he’s kriffing insane. 

“We’ve received some very important intel,” he says, picking each word carefully, “intel that could end the war. But you’ll--” he falters for the slightest moment. “You’ll have to believe me.”

Fox’s eyes widen the barest amount. He hesitates.

“Tell me.”

* * *

Fox had been having, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly standard day: wake up (0600), file paperwork (0630-1200), guard shift (1230-1600), avoid the mess hall in favor of wolfing down a ration bar so he has time to file the remaining paperwork (1600-present).

When his comm had pinged without warning, he’d flinched.

When he’d answered it to  _ Rex _ of all people, looking like someone had just told him the galaxy was ending next tenday, an uneasy chill had started creeping up his neck.

By the time Rex finishes explaining, he’s outright sick to his stomach. His hands are shaking violently; he clenches them into fists to make them stop. 

His mind frantically filters through the information, attempting to sort it in order of importance only to end in an agitated snarl. Darth  _ di’kutla _ \-- out of all the things they could have-- and  _ Tano _ ? Rex must be  _ insane  _ if he thinks--

“... Fox? Are you--”

“I believe you,” he blurts. His heart beats wildly in his chest, panic frosting his veins. 

Control chips. 

The  _ Chancellor _ . 

That means it’s  _ real _ . That means-- 

_ Fives’ empty eyes stare up at him. He can’t move. _

_ He can’t move.  _

_ His blaster was set to stun. He can’t move. He’d flipped the switch himself, hadn’t he? He can’t move. He flips it every time. He remembers the click of the mechanism moving. He doesn’t remember-- _

_ He can’t remember. _

_ He can’t move. _

“--x!  _ Fox! _ ” The crackle of Rex’s voice snaps him back into the present. 

“ _ Haar’chak _ ,” Fox bites out, blinking hard to ground himself. A rush of relief sweeps through him, twining through the panic. There was a  _ reason _ .

“I believe you,” he says again, and swallows roughly. “The chips-- you’re sure they’re in  _ all _ of us?”

“We’re sure,” Rex says.

“I think that mine’s been malfunctioning,” Fox manages, struggling to keep his voice even.

“ _ What _ ?” Rex snaps, jolting in place. “I-- what’s been happening?”

“I’ve been- I’ve been losing time. I’d wake up and I’d have missed-- days, weeks. Nothing else was ever out of line, though. My reports were all lined up from the-- the time I didn’t remember, my paperwork was all filed, so I thought-- I thought--”

Fox takes a breath, squares his shoulders. Do  _ not _ fall apart now, after everything. “I thought it was just the stress getting to me--”

“Did you go to a medic?”

“Of  _ course _ I went to a medic! But they didn’t find anything on the surface, and-- you  _ know _ how things are, if the problem persisted and they couldn’t solve it they’d just ship me back and bring in a replacement, so I kept my mouth shut. And then…” he peters off.

“Then  _ what _ ?” Rex asks, agitated. 

Fox looks up to meet his eyes. 

“Then I woke up one day,” he says hoarsely, “and a  _ vod _ was dead at my feet.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” Rex breathes out distantly. 

After Fives’ death, the concept of trying to tell someone had become laughable. So Fox had ignored the whispers, ignored the clipped, distant tones his  _ vode _ spoke to him in.

“We’ll fix this,  _ ori’vod _ ,” Rex continues, and Fox blinks the burning out of his eyes because Rex hasn’t called him that since--  _ before _ , back when Cody would loop an arm around their  _ vod’ika _ ’s shoulders and insist on naming him the newest honorary member of their command-class and Wolffe would laugh at Fox’s sputtered objections about broken regulations. It seems like a lifetime away.

“We’ll need a plan,” he says, hollow, and shoves his turmoil down until it’s something approaching a background buzz.

“We  _ have _ one,” Rex tells him, conviction heavy in his voice, “but that’s why I’m calling you. If we had the Coruscant Guard in our corner, it could be--”

A sudden flash of irritation whips through Fox. “ _ Whose  _ corner? Yours, or the  _ Sith Lord _ whose  _ ship _ you’re apparently on?”

“I-- look, technically he’s on  _ our _ ship--” 

“Explain to me how that’s better!”

“ _ Fox! _ ” Rex snaps fiercely. “ _ Listen _ to me. There are innocent lives at stake. Will you help us, or not?”

Fox drags a hand down his face and turns his eyes to the ceiling. “You want me to help you, a rogue  _ jetii-- _

“--not a  _ jetii-- _ ”

“--a rogue  _ jetii, _ and  _ Darth Maul  _ to  _ execute _ the  _ Chancellor _ , on  _ unconfirmed intel _ that he’s a Sith Lord who’s orchestrating the entire war?”

“ _ Will _ you?”

Fox turns his head back down, lets out a deep breath. Thinks about the unfinished pile of paperwork still lying on his desk. Thinks about his  _ vode _ . It’s not a question.

“Kriff you, Rex,” he says, and watches a spark of hope light in his  _ vod’ika _ ’s eyes. “I don’t know how many of my men I can trust with this. I’ll find you a discreet location to land your ship.”

“ _ Vor entye, ori’vod, _ ” Rex says, his shoulders visibly relaxing. “Thank you.”

Fox huffs. “Just don’t let it go to your head.”

* * *

(“I sense great fear in you, Skywalker,” the Count snarls, red blade clashing against Anakin’s blue. “You have hate; you have anger. But you don’t  _ use  _ them.”

_ You don’t know anything about me.  _

Anakin keeps his mouth shut and redoubles his efforts.)

(Dooku kneels in front of him. His eyes are wide with shock, his hands dead, smoking flesh on the floor. A flicker of petty vengeance burns through Anakin amidst the adrenaline.

It had been Dooku who had chopped his right hand off, all those years ago on Geonosis. Now he's getting his comeuppance twice over.)

(“ _ Do it, _ ” Palpatine growls. Something cold and nauseating pools in Anakin’s stomach. 

He can’t do this. It’s not the Jedi way. He can’t--

_ Kriff _ . He doesn’t  _ want _ to do this. The temporary, heady thrill of revenge is nothing next to the chill that fills him at the thought of another slaughter on his hands.

He grips the sabers until the metal threatens to bend under his hands. Dooku is dangerous. He’s a monster. It will be easier to win the war with him dead. 

He’s also unarmed and helpless. Anakin has the sudden, wild instinct that if he kills the man in front of him now, he will never be able to stop.

He lowers the sabers.)

(“You’re beaten, Dooku,” Anakin tells him. “You can stay here and die, if you want; or you can follow me and stand trial to the Republic. Make your choice.”

Dooku’s eyes glow gold with hatred, agony and humiliation clouding the force around him. He follows.

Little resistance meets them. By the time they make it to the bridge, it’s abandoned. The escape pods are gone. The ship is going down.)

(“You know,” Obi-wan says amicably to Dooku as they struggle to keep the crashing ship level, “You must be rather happy that your apprentice made it out of here alive.”

“Grievous is nothing more than a tool that I have crafted to my own ends,” Dooku responds, surprisingly coherent for a man on the brink of passing out from sheer pain. 

“ _ Focus _ , Master!” Anakin snaps, and Obi-wan turns back to the controls.)

* * *

(Grievous  _ laughs _ , full of malice; just like always, it turns into an awful hacking cough halfway through.

Obi-wan, lying bruised and weaponless on the floor, has several very distinct realizations at once.)

(“The  _ negotiator _ ,” Grievous says gleefully, one hand wrapped around Obi-wan’s throat. “Any last words?”

“You must send my regards to Count Dooku,” Obi-wan chokes out. “He created a very effective machine.”

Grievous snarls. Dark splotches are beginning to swim before Obi-wan’s eyes. “He didn’t  _ create _ me, you  _ imbecile _ . He saved my life.”

“Is that what he told you?” Obi-wan manages. Grievous’s grip loosens incrementally.

“ _ What? _ ”)

(A faint flicker of something like sympathy passes through Obi-wan as he watches the 212th hoist Grievous’s unconscious form into restraints to transport him.

Cody steps up beside him. “Impressive work, General,” he says, and wordlessly hands Obi-wan his lightsaber back. 

“Wherever would I be without you, Cody,” Obi-wan replies fondly, clipping the saber to his belt. Cody returns his smile.)

* * *

By the time they begin their landing on Coruscant, Ahsoka is  _ very _ grateful to be getting off the ship. Not that spending several hours crammed into a gunship hold between her commander and a former Sith Lord isn’t her idea of a good time, but, well. It isn’t.

The time hadn’t been spent entirely in silence, though-- Rex had sounded both relieved and fearful as he’d told them Commander Fox had agreed to help. They had spent the following minutes restraining themselves from devolving into argument long enough to weld a rough action plan together.

Land where Fox tells them to and hope he doesn’t sell them out. Sneak into the senate building through the maintenance tunnels and hope they don’t get caught. Confront the Chancellor in his office and hope they can defeat him. It’s not even much of a  _ plan _ ; more like a bullet-point list of things that’ll get them arrested at best and killed at worst.

Frankly, Ahsoka’s done more with less. She wasn’t apprenticed to Anakin Skywalker for nothing. 

(Where  _ is _ he right now, anyway? The last she had heard of him, he had captured Dooku alive and was headed back to Coruscant. Is he still there?)

The gunship sets down in a small, nondescript hangar a little ways away from the Coruscant Guard barracks, nestled among several other ships identical to it. Rex slips his helmet on.

The hiss of the side door opening sounds more like something sealing shut. A chill runs down Ahsoka’s spine. 

For a single, silent moment, the only thing she sees is the muzzle of Fox’s blaster. 

His sigh is barely audible through the filter of his helmet. He lowers his gun.

“So you made it here in one piece,” he says. He doesn’t sound very relieved.

“How astute of you to recognize,” Maul says flatly. Ahsoka ignores him in favor of stepping out of the ship to stand level with Fox.

Her past interactions with Fox have consisted of a bizarre mix of wildly embarrassing stories Rex had told her about him secondhand and Fox himself chasing her down to arrest her for a bombing she’d been framed for a year ago; so, all things considered, she’s not  _ entirely _ sure how to treat him in normal conversation. 

Not that discussing how to most effectively arrest and/or kill their Supreme Chancellor is really  _ normal conversation _ , but, you know. Extenuating circumstances. 

“Commander; thank you for agreeing to help us with this. I know it’s not… the easiest matter to deal with,” she ends up telling him, erring on the side of formality.

Rex snorts. “Well, that’s one way of putting it.” 

Fox looks between them for a moment. 

“We shouldn’t waste much time,” he says instead of acknowledging Ahsoka’s thanks, which is fair, she guesses. “The Chancellor is preparing for his shift right now, so he’ll be in his office starting in about thirty minutes. Once he’s there, he should stay more-or-less put for a good eight hours or so. And pardon me, but all due respect, Miss Tano, I want to hear this from you--” he turns to Ahsoka directly, gesturing in Maul’s direction. “Why exactly is  _ he _ here for this?”

Ahsoka holds up a hand to silence Maul before he can butt in with a remark.

“Because he’s the only one here who has any idea what we’re walking into,” she says levelly, and Fox seems to accept that as an answer. Maul gives her an incomprehensible look, but remains silent. Small mercies. 

Fox speaks up again after another bout of tense silence. “I’ve informed a small number of my men about what’s going on-- no specifics, just that there’s a suspected threat in the senate and I’m leading a highly classified strike force to investigate. We’re going to be relying on them to keep the way into the building clear. And the way out, if we make it that far.”

Ahsoka nods, lets out a breath. “Good. Let’s go.”

* * *

The maintenance tunnels that wind underneath the senate building are long, and narrow, and very,  _ very _ dark. Small scuttling things prowl along the walls, and a thin layer of something that’s  _ hopefully _ water coats the floor. It all sends cold, writhing revulsion up Maul’s spine. Too familiar.

He twists his shields closer to himself and forces his legs to move forward. Past this last trial is his Master; past his Master is--

Maul doesn’t allow himself to dwell on it. 

In front of him, Tano leads their path with a glowing saber held aloft, no trace of fear in her steps. It’s respectable, he admits. She will do what has to be done; she’s smart enough to recognize the necessity of it. Her Commander follows loyally in her stead, casting cautious glances back at him every few moments.

Behind Maul is the other clone--  _ Fox _ , he’d been referred to as, and as much as Maul detests the inane nicknames they all seem to give each other, he begrudgingly admits that he’s going to have to differentiate between them  _ some _ how if he ever wants to get this over with. So, Fox. 

“Hold,” Tano calls suddenly, stopping in place. Maul flinches, freezing where he stands, and hears the others do the same. 

“Commander?”

“There’s something--”

Without warning, a shape hurls itself from the darkness-- Tano jolts back, shock lashing through the Force. 

Before Maul can even process what it  _ is _ , it’s caught midair, thrashing in the simple loop of control he’s just reflexively thrown around its neck. Nausea threatens to climb up his throat. Something crawling, gnashing--

Tano regains her bearings. A flash of blue, and it falls limp to the ground, smoking.

She prods it with her foot. “Just vermin.”

_ Just vermin _ . Maul’s heartbeats roar in his ears. His hand drifts back down to his side, and it’s only then he realizes that it had been outstretched at all. 

That shouldn’t have thrown him so badly. He needs to get out of these infernal kriffing  _ tunnels _ .

“I don’t get paid enough,” Fox says dryly, cutting through the momentary silence. 

“You get paid?” Tano asks over her shoulder. The first clone ( _ Rex _ ; Maul grinds his teeth) snorts. 

“Yeah, sure we do. And Fox can hold his liquor,” he says. His brother doesn’t reply, but a distinct wave of annoyance wafts off of him into the Force. 

“If you’d all care to keep  _ moving _ ,” Maul bites out, irritated. 

“We should,” Tano agrees, a note of alarm in her voice. “I can hear more of those things further down.”

A disorienting bolt of unease spikes through Maul at the thought of more vermin, more claws scraping and teeth gnawing at-

“ _ Well _ ,” he snaps, carefully nudging any stray notes of hysteria out of his voice, “What a wonderful end your plan has led us to,  _ Commander _ .”

“And I’m sure if you had it your way we’d be breaking down the front doors guns blazing, which would have ended  _ exceptionally _ well,” Fox points out, judgement level in his voice.

Maul turns to face him. “If I had it my way, I would have… oh, how do you say it? Gotten rid of the  _ dead weight _ already and been  _ done _ with it.” 

“Well, luckily for  _ you _ , only one of us here is in the business of  _ getting rid  _ of people because they disagree with us,  _ sir _ ,” Fox says icily.

Maul barks a harsh, incredulous laugh. “Says the  _ soldier. _ Tell me, when was the last time your masters sent you out to--  _ apprehend _ someone who was opposing your Republic’s precious ideals?”

Fox visibly flinches. He brings a hand up to the side of his helmet, pressing his palm to above where his temple would be. A spike of alarm carves through the Force like a blaster shot.

Rex elbows past Maul, stepping up beside his brother.

“ _ Enough _ , you two,” he snaps.

Fox seems to break out of whatever had unsettled him, shaking his head sharply with a slight hiss.

“If you were one of my men, I would have you shot,” he seethes, shrugging off the warning hand that Rex lays on his pauldron. 

“If I were one of your men, I would shoot  _ myself _ ,” Maul hisses back, and Rex puts himself bodily between them to keep Fox from lunging at him. 

“ _ Hey! _ ” Tano calls. “Argue  _ later _ . We need to go.”

Without preamble, Maul turns and begins stalking down the tunnel after her again. Her light is farther away than before, and his feet itch to move closer to it, away from the darkness, the distant scratching that pries at the edges of his concentration. He forces himself to keep a steady, quiet pace. 

He flinches violently when another creature bursts out of the shadows, and scores a glowing brand into the wall in his haste to kill it. Tano turns back at the noise, giving him a look he can’t quite parse. 

“Keep your saber out-- it’ll make less noise than the blasters if any more of those things pop up. And besides,” she adds thoughtfully, “maybe the light will scare them away. Like the opposite of moths flying to a lamp.”

“You’re not very far from a fool, are you?” Maul asks coolly, his voice echoing down the tunnel. 

“Well, there’s only ten feet between us,” Tano replies immediately, and Rex promptly stumbles over a rock behind them. 

Maul doesn’t dignify her with a response; but he does keep the saber lit, and he does start moving again. They encounter no more vermin.

* * *

If you had asked Rex what he was planning to do that day, the answer probably wouldn’t have been  _ getting his own shebs decommissioned _ , but, you know, if there’s one thing he’s learned under General Skywalker, it’s to expect the unexpected.

By the time they emerge from the maintenance tunnels into the light of the conveniently-deserted backrooms (Fox is to thank for that one, assumedly) of the senate building, the dread weighing on his back has expanded to measure roughly the same as Coruscant itself. 

He counts the small mercies, though-- Fox has dropped his spat with Maul in favor of falling into a sullen silence, which Rex thinks is probably well-deserved at this point. Ahsoka seems to be holding it together well enough as always, and Maul is, well,  _ Maul _ , but at least he’s not  _ actively _ starting shit. For the moment, anyway.

So, all in all, about the best it’s gonna get. Now they just have to kill a kriffing Sith Lord. 

Easy.

They move quietly through the halls, slowing around every corner. Rex appreciatively notes several empty guard posts along the way-- more of Fox’s handiwork, if his  _ ori’vod’ _ s lack of reaction is any indication. He’s always been an efficient worker.

In fact, Fox doesn’t seem to be reacting much to anything. Rex frowns. Maybe the argument in the tunnels got to him more than he’s letting on.

He shakes the worry off. He needs to concentrate; Fox can handle himself. 

Rex has only been into the senate building on a few painfully-formal occasions prior to this; now, every step on the patterned carpet floor feels like sneaking further into his own grave. 

They’re two hallways from the Chancellor’s office, then one, and then--

And then the unassuming, ornate door  _ looms _ in front of them all, and Ahsoka turns back like she’s about to say something to the rest of them, but before she can speak a door at the far end of the hall swishes open, and they all startle, readying their weapons. A blind panic sweeps through him before he recognizes the figures striding towards them as--

As.

Oh, no.

“Tano. Commander. I see your mission went well,” Jedi Master Mace Windu says, with the inflection of a man who’s just walked out of a six-hour long political meeting only to find out that his speeder has broken down.

For an excruciatingly long moment, all of them stare wildly at each other, nobody daring to move first. Rex isn’t a Force-wielder, but the tension into the air digs into him pointedly enough that he might as well be. Belatedly, he realizes he should probably holster his blaster.

“Fancy meeting you two again so soon,” Kenobi adds into the ringing silence, in a tone so perfectly, politely measured that it sends a bolt of instinctual shame down Rex’s back. Behind him, Master Fisto’s eyes have widened to a point that might be comedic in any other context.

Finally, Ahsoka steps forward. “Masters. I can explain, but you need to--”

“I’m afraid an explanation may need to  _ wait _ ,” Maul cuts in, a lilt of urgency accompanying his voice. Ahsoka glares at him fiercely over her shoulder. 

Rex’s head is beginning to pound from the sheer surrealness of the situation. He hazards a glance sideways at Fox, who stays silent. The ceiling lights glint harshly off his  _ ori’vod _ ’s visor, obscuring his expression. 

“Commander Fox. Would you care to tell us what’s going on here?” Windu asks, with a deliberate and frankly impressive amount of patience. 

“Sir,” says Fox, straightening. “I--”

He pauses for a moment, freezing up.  _ Great _ . If nothing else, Rex takes solace in the fact that Fox is just as thrown off as he is. 

“--I’m assisting in the confirmation and eradication of suspected treason against the Republic.”

Rex’s face scrunches up under his bucket. Why did he have to say it like  _ that _ ?

“Suspected under  _ what _ advisement?”

“A trusted one,” Fox says bluntly. Rex furrows his brow at that, but says nothing. As long as it gets them into the Chancellor’s office, he guesses it has to stand. 

“You know, I  _ do _ wonder if our good Chancellor is wondering about all of the commotion just outside his door,” Kenobi points out.

Maul makes a noise halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “Your  _ ‘good Chancellor’ _ is soon to have bigger  _ commotions _ to--”

“We’re coming here to apprehend him, sir,” Rex jumps in, words tumbling out of his mouth before he can think about them. He blanches when all three Jedi Masters’ gazes turn to him. “Uh. We-- believe that he may be--”

“The man you call your Chancellor is my former master, Darth Sidious,” Maul snaps, verging on hysteria. He’d been growing more and more agitated as the encounter went on-- now, he looks like he might snap like a wire pulled too tight, his whole form wound up with panicked hostility. “And if you don’t allow us to  _ kill him _ , you’ll be sealing the door to your own coffins, so I  _ suggest _ you do the smart thing and  _ move aside _ .”

The hall falls into silence again. Kenobi and Windu give each other a very particular look.

“He’s telling the truth, Masters,” Ahsoka insists, a bit strangled. 

“Oh, I don’t think  _ that’s _ in question,” Kenobi says in a tone that Rex can’t quite place.

Rex startles. “ _ What _ ?”

Windu sighs heavily. “We’ve been informed by Anakin Skywalker that Palpatine revealed to him his own status as the Sith Lord orchestrating the war. We were heading  _ here _ to place him under arrest for treason against the Republic.”

_ Oh.  _

Well. This is either very good news, or very,  _ very _ bad news for them, Rex supposes. 

Maul, in what Rex is beginning to recognize as a very in-character move of him, chooses that moment to pipe up again. “If you’re foolish enough to think that _lawful_ _arrest_ will stop what he’s--”

Ahsoka, running on what Rex can only assume is years of built up little-sibling instinct, elbows Maul in the side to shut him up.

To all their surprise, it actually  _ works--  _ well, either that or Maul is too affronted to form words, anyway. He aims a searing glare at her and falls momentarily silent. 

“ _ Masters _ ,” Ahsoka addresses them for the third time. “We’re all in agreement that Sidious needs to be apprehended. Idling outside his office arguing isn’t going to help, and I don’t think any of us here is going to be willing to wait outside. And besides,” she continues, tension creeping into her voice, “if he’s as dangerous as we’ve been led to believe, we could use as many of us as possible.”

They all shift uncomfortably as they consider the implications of her words. She’s not  _ wrong _ , and Rex suspects the  _ jetii _ don’t like that fact.

Thankfully, nobody on their side of the hallway is a  _ jetii.  _

That only leaves the other half of the equation. 

The Masters share another pained look between them, as if having some silent debate. Kenobi raises an eyebrow pointedly, his eyes flicking in Maul’s direction.

A bead of sweat runs down Rex’s forehead.  _ Sithspit _ . 

This is really not how he’d pictured going out. Maybe if Cody were here, he’d have something convincing and professional and somehow very  _ Mandalorian _ to say. Cody’s always been good at that. 

“Very well, then,” Windu says decisively, after what seems like an eternity. “Stay in line, and you may act as backup if the confrontation turns violent. We’ll deal with the...  _ rest _ of the situation afterwards.”

Rex blinks. That… was easy. He glances around somewhat suspiciously, as if he might find a loose brick out of place that’ll cause the whole wall to tumble down. The room itself is just as non-threatening and garishly decorated as ever.

Fox is still frozen in place beside him, though he tilts his head briefly in Rex’s direction at his glance. 

Ahsoka looks just as surprised as he is at Windu’s agreement-- almost as surprised as Fisto, but the latter tampers down on it much more quickly. 

Kenobi is still the apparent picture of poise and grace, but Rex has known him for long enough by now that he can recognize the absolutely abysmal energies radiating off of him every moment longer he spends in Maul’s presence. 

As for Maul himself, Rex can’t hear so much as he can  _ feel _ him grinding his teeth to stay quiet at this point. The former Sith dips into a mocking half-bow, gesturing for the  _ jetii _ to enter the office first. 

Windu says nothing, turning and stepping through the sliding doors. Kenobi and Fisto flank him on either side. Ashoka and Maul glance between each other for a moment before following.

Rex takes a breath, steeling himself.  _ Can’t go back now. _

The moment he’s inside, dread floods through him. Something is wrong.

Palpatine sits relaxed in his swivel-chair, turning at the sound of their entrance. Standing on either side of him are several  _ vode _ \-- Coruscant Guard members. They’re holding their weapons at the ready.

Something is  _ wrong _ .

“Master Windu,” the Chancellor says smoothly. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic, you are under arrest, Chancellor.” 

“Are you  _ threatening _ me, Master Jedi?” 

Windu’s voice is even. “The Senate will decide your fate.”

“I don’t quite think so,” Sidious says, his words sliding like cold metal down Rex’s spine. “Commander Fox!”

Rex whips his head around to face his  _ vod _ , who’s standing stock-still beside him, his expression imperceptible beneath his bucket. 

“These men are committing an act of treason. Execute them.”

\--his  _ vod _ who has a  _ malfunctioning control chip in his head _ .

Oh, Rex is going to  _ kill _ that kriffing Sith bastard.

Fox’s blaster is barely halfway out of its holster before Rex is leaping forward to tackle him, and the room bursts into  _ chaos _ . 

* * *

Maul is not scared.

Maul is not  _ scared _ because fear is for children and pathetic creatures writhing in caves; Maul is not scared because fear would first require something to  _ lose _ .

But when he reaches past the familiar tangle of hatred and pain that rests ever-present behind his eyes, behind his temples, and finds nothing underneath,  _ nothing _ \-- only a gaping void, hollow of all emotion and presence, that is... something.

More than anything, he feels  _ certain-- _ of what, he’s not entirely sure. 

But he knows well as anything that there is only one way forward, so he grinds his teeth together until he feels like something might snap as they exchange useless information in the hallway because they are _so_ _close_ to his Master now and his force signature prickles painfully and far, far too familiarly at the edges of Maul’s senses and Maul’s blood _sings_ at the thought of driving a blade through his wretched kriffing throat, sings with a righteous and devouring _vengeance_.

He can almost taste the copper on his tongue. He’s so  _ close _ . 

Tano’s commander shouts something and tackles the weapon out of his brother’s hand and Maul takes the opportunity granted by distraction to  _ lunge _ . 

His vision is drowned in a whirl of scarlet as he finally,  _ finally _ brings his blade to clash spitting and sparking against that of his Master's.

Sharp pain whips through his lower body as he pushes the stiff-jointed durasteel legs to the extent of their flexibility, the multicolored flashes of the Jedi’s blades only a smear in the peripherals of his concentration. His Master lets out a poisonous cackle, and acid-bitter rage flares redoubled in Maul’s heaving chest.

A wave of violent, unyielding Force sends him flying back into a column, and his vision whites out for a split-second as his shoulder connects with the stone with a brutal  _ crack _ . 

He staggers up, righting himself, and  _ snarls _ . His senses are dulled by the pain; he digs his claws in viciously, expertly bleeding newfound strength and focus out of every blinding-hot needle that spikes through him. 

He throws himself into the fight again, aware of those aiding him only to the end of avoiding impaling himself on their blades-- his Master is matching the flurry of blows directed at him with a terrifying ease, picking off the engaging Jedi one by one in some sick, deadly imitation of a dance.

A stray blaster bolt grazes Maul’s horn, unkindly reminding him of the other occupants of the room. He moves to kill the clone responsible, but some foriegn instinct wills him to settle at the last second for knocking his assailant unconscious with a vicious kick to the head. 

The green-skinned Master whose name Maul can’t be bothered to recall takes a bad blow to the leg and collapses to the floor, and Kenobi drops into a protective stance, hooking an arm under his shoulders to pull him away from the fight. 

How Kenobi manages to be so kriffing  _ noble _ all the time is beyond Maul. It might be somewhat impressive if it weren’t so deeply disgusting. 

He’s allowing himself to become distracted. He snarls again.

Tano takes a bolt to the shoulder, crying out in pain. Kenobi attempts to rejoin the fight, only to be thrown back, head cracking against a column in much the same way Maul’s shoulder had earlier. The clones are scattered unconscious throughout the room, only the two commanders left grappling each other on the floor. Rex appears to be winning. 

That leaves himself and Windu. 

\--or, that leaves Windu, because Maul takes a scorching slash to the ribcage that sends him frantically scrabbling backwards. He clumsily pulls himself behind the curved desk for cover, leaving Windu to face his Master alone, violet clashing on crimson. 

He forces lungfuls of air in and out, ignoring the pain wreathing his side, and looks to his left. 

Blocky, off-white shapes blur into each other on the carpet-- he blinks until they sharpen into something he recognises. 

Neither of the clones have helmets on. Rex is hunched over, his hands cradling his brother’s head. Blood is smeared across his palms, across his chestplate; it pours down Fox’s face where he lies limp on the floor. 

Maul can only barely make out the words pouring out of Rex’s mouth, desperate and fervent: “Fox, hey, Fox,  _ ori’vod _ , stay with me, Fox,  _ Fox-- _ ”

Something cold and unpleasant pulls at Maul’s chest, raw like an exposed nerve. Fleeting snatches of memory flicker past his eyes, unbidden; the cold stone of a courtyard, a metal hand in his.

He shakes his head sharply, ignoring the rush of dizziness that accompanies the motion. He doesn’t-- He--

He needs to get back to the fight. The  _ fight _ .

He forces himself upright, stumbling back around the desk. 

His Master is matching Windu blow-for-blow, but the latter is tiring too quickly-- as Maul watches, the Jedi gets thrown back, skidding across the floor. The metal joints of Maul’s legs shriek harshly as he pushes himself forwards, seamlessly replacing Windu’s blade with his own. Agony and exhaustion weigh heavy on his limbs, turning every movement into an excruciating battle.

“My former apprentice,” his Master taunts, voice like black oil. “Still trying so hard to defeat me. Your hubris will be your downfall.”

“And your  _ weakness _ will be yours,” Maul snarls breathlessly back at him, molten rage flaring through him. He brings his saberstaff down again and again, buzzing like scarlet lightning through the air, pouring every part of his being into  _ focusing-- _

A sharp elbow meets his chin, and a prism of sparks spray through his vision. Before he can recover, something hooks around his arm, his ankle; and then he’s flat on the floor, trying to force his lungs into filling again. He opens his eyes, arms held out in instinctual defense--

His Master  _ cackles  _ at Maul’s helplessness, sick amusement bleeding through the pitch-dark abyss of his Force-signature, and throws his hands out, palms open. 

Maul has a split-second to register what’s about to happen before his vision whites out with pain.

The crackling electricity splits his mind, driving into the deepest cracks and crevices and raking its agonizing claws over the raw tenderness there. The sound it makes is deafening, drowning all out other noise, like someone is clutching his head between their hands and screaming their lungs out. Some distant corner of his mind recognises, delayed, that both the hands and the scream belong to him. 

_ I’m sorry, brother _ , he thinks hysterically.  _ I wasn’t strong enough _ .

The pain drags on for what might be seconds or eons, steady in its intensity; Maul realizes with what scraps of thought he can bear to string together that it’s not  _ changing _ . It’s not getting worse; but it’s not leaving him. He’s not dead yet. 

From pain, comes anger, comes power. Maul has been taught this all his life. 

He opens his eyes. 

The lightning courses around him, blinding-- his surroundings are nothing more than a jumbled collection of silhouettes beyond it, shapes blurring into each other. He opens a hand, and calls the saberstaff to him. It meets his palm with a cold, steady weight. 

The lightning peters off, only for a split-second, a pause in the agony. It’s more than enough time.

Maul  _ pounces _ . His Master blocks one strike, two-- he’s off-balance, he wasn’t expecting Maul to get back up-- Something spikes unpleasantly in Maul’s gut; he ignores it wholly-- 

Maul feints. Strikes. The saber flies from his Master’s grip, lands halfway across the room at Ahsoka Tano’s feet, where before it can be called back to his owner, Tano grabs onto it herself to keep it there, her movements half-delirious with pain. 

Maul reels a fist back and punches Sidious square in the jaw. 

He goes down embarrassingly easily after it all, really, probably from sheer exhaustion at that point. Maul can’t find it in himself to spare a single second of care about that fact. 

He brings one point of his blade, bloodied and humming and  _ victorious _ , under Sidious’s chin, stares into his hollow eyes for the last time. He’s dreamed of this moment. It  _ feels _ like some fevered dream he’s having, caught up in awful delirium borne from pain and adrenaline. 

“My _former Master_. Do you want to _live_?” he taunts, beside himself.  "Then offer me power."

“Spare me and you will be given power,” Sidious pleads, and Maul grins with all his teeth because that’s not the way of the Sith at  _ all _ , and he knows now that his former master is nothing but an old, wretched man who fears death more than anything; and he has  _ lost _ .

“Offer me more,” Maul breathes. “Offer me everything you have."

“Anything you want,” Sidious spits, stilted, like the words are being torn out of him one by one.

“ _ I want my brother back _ ,” Maul snarls at him, and plunges his blade up through the old man’s neck. 

All at once, a shockwave ripples through the Force. It feels like a veil being lifted, a layer of dark oil drawn off of a lake. It’s clearer now. Lighter. Maul exhales in surprise at the sensation. His pain is clearer, too, now that the adrenaline is bleeding off. 

He blinks. He hadn’t remembered falling to his knees. 

_ Oh _ , he thinks with an odd detachment,  _ I’m going to see Savage again _ , and then the room tilts around him, and there is nothing.

* * *

Obi-wan opens his eyes just in time to see Maul keel over. 

A thrumming pain claws at his head, and when he pulls his hand away from the back of it there’s blood smeared across his fingers. He winces. 

His thoughts are staticky and muffled, like they’re being fed through a cheap holofilter. The room is a blur of motion around him.

Why  _ Maul _ of all people had even  _ been _ there is beyond him, but quite frankly, amidst everything else that had happened that day, Obi-wan can’t find it in himself to care enough to speculate. 

\-- Everything else that had happened that day. The Chancellor.  _ Sidious _ .

He needs to find Anakin. 

Using a nearby pillar for support, he pushes himself upright, swallowing down the nausea that threatens to climb his throat at the motion and taking stock of his surroundings. 

Nobody is dead-- he knows that much, at least. Commander Fox’s Force signature wavers unsteadily, and all the others are soaked in varying degrees of pain and upset, but nobody-- at least nobody on  _ their _ side-- is  _ dead _ . A rush of relief washes through him. 

The fight is over. They’ve won. It doesn’t feel like they’ve won. 

Obi-wan gathers the panic-tinged uncertainty swirling in his gut and releases it to the Force with all the ease and effectiveness of a man throwing a handful of rice out of a soaking-wet hand.

_ Well _ . It was worth a try.

The other occupants of the room are picking themselves up, too. Ahsoka is kneeling next to Rex, who’s still cradling Fox on the ground, applying pressure to a wound on his brother’s head. Master Windu is slowly making his way around to each of the other clones, checking them over one by one. Master Fisto is relaying something into his comm, speech stilted, clutching onto consciousness much as he clutches at his injured leg. 

Without preamble, the office door swishes open. 

Obi-wan snaps up at the sound, turning his focus to the doorway-- 

\--and stops short.

“Anakin.” The word slips from his mouth before he can prevent it. 

Anakin has always been, for all he’s worth, terrible at concealing his emotions at the  _ best _ of times; now, rage and grief clash so plainly on his former padawan’s face that it’s almost painful to witness.

“What have you done,” he says; and he sounds  _ hollow _ , like someone’s taken a knife and scraped his throat empty with it. 

For a long, wretched moment, nobody seems to breathe.

“Anakin,” Obi-wan tries again, because despite himself, he’s not sure exactly what to  _ do _ , but he has to do  _ something--  _ something to fill the awful silence that rings through the room, to remedy the unfixable, irrevocable mistake that he’s steadfastly certain he must have somehow had a part in making. 

When he takes a step forward, Anakin’s hand jumps to his saber, a breath away from drawing it. The Force snarls  _ distrust  _ and Obi-wan stops dead, swallowing. The pounding of his headache is getting worse. 

“I--” Anakin breaks off, hoarse. “You-- I  _ needed _ him-- l-- I need--”

His eyes flicker around the room, searching for something that he can’t seem to find. He looks lost in a way Obi-wan’s only seen on one other face before, in glimpses of his own reflection caught in metal and mirrors long ago. He had learned to conceal it in time, but  _ this _ is--

“--I need  _ help _ .” 

Anakin’s voice cracks at the end, quiets, like he’s terrified by his own words. It cuts through Obi-wan’s chest so swiftly and absolutely that he feels lightheaded-- how long has he failed to listen while his padawan has told him the exact same, screamed in every way he could, bar only plain spoken word itself? How deep does Anakin’s distrust in the Order run, how much of it has Obi-wan--

“Anakin,” Ahsoka says softly from next to Obi-wan. He jolts; he hadn’t noticed her walk up. “What’s going on?

Anakin’s eyes fill.

“It’s Padmé,” he says, desperate, and Obi-wan’s heart plunges all over again. “She’s dying.” 

* * *

Palpatine is dead. 

Palpatine is dead and now there’s nothing anyone can do and Anakin is standing in an elevator going to Padmé’s apartment because she’s-- 

she’s--

\--and he’s never understood what people mean when they say that they feel like their galaxy is falling apart when they’re going through something until now because it is, it really is, big chunks crumbling around him like it’s some cheap holovid effect.

Palpatine is dead. The only way he knew to save his wife is dead and cold on his own kriffing office floor.

The trip to Padmé’s building had been a blur. He can’t even remember who’s speeder they had used, just that someone else had driven and the streets had blurred around him even as they seemed to move impossibly slowly; way,  _ way _ too slowly to get there before--

Before. 

Anakin draws in a shuddering breath, and a hand is placed onto his shoulder. 

“It’s going to be fine,” Obi-wan tells him, voice calm in a way that means he’s trying his best to pretend to be. It’s not going to be fine. It’s really not. Not until Padmé is safe. Not until--

The elevator stops. 

She’s exactly where he left her, laid peacefully across the couch, but her Force signature is flickering like a flame in a strong wind. Her face is pale and sweaty, and the tiny, fragile signature contained in her abdomen flares hot with alarm. 

He shouldn’t have left her there.  _ Force _ , why did he leave her there? What was he  _ thinking _ ? He never should have-- She’s going to--

“ _ Anakin _ ,” Obi-wan snaps urgently, and Anakin realizes he’s been trying to get his attention. “We need to get her to a medcenter; I’ll call a medic now. Stay here with her, and tell me if her heartbeat or breathing changes.”

He nods wordlessly as Obi-wan steps away and sits down on the couch by Padmé’s side, wrapping one hand around her wrist and laying fingers across the pulsepoint there. Her hand is pale, and her pulse flutters in something that only barely qualifies as a rhythm. He lays a hand across her stomach and feels sick. He’s seen her like this before, in nightmares that ended in her cold and still, that he woke up from shaking, sobbing.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He doesn’t think he could bear it. His world is falling apart. 

He forces himself to keep breathing. 

The longer the seconds stretch on, the less aware he becomes of his surroundings, until all that’s left is Padmé’s Force signature. It surrounds him in a horrifying, jagged spiral of  _ danger danger danger _ , filling up the space left in his lungs, choking and crushing. It feels  _ wrong _ , like someone sunk needle-sharp fangs into it and shot it full of venom, seeping arcid through all of the flowerbands and notes-written-on-flimsi and smooth-soft marble cornerstones that should wash over his mind like a laketide. 

Distantly, he feels himself choke on a sob. He clings to the pulse beating weak and staccato under his fingers like a lifeline.

She  _ has _ to live.

( _ She has to live, he thinks; he sobs in a tent and clutches his mother closer to him. _ )

( _ There is no blood on his hands, because he used the weapon of a peacekeeper to do this.  _

_ It hangs heavy in the air instead, sinks into his skin and teeth and eyes. The smoke is sweet in his lungs. There is so much blood on his hands. _ )

He takes another ragged breath, and presses his forehead to Padmé’s. His heart batters at his chest, his mind a desperate mantra of  _ has to live has to live has to live _ .  _ She has to live _ . 

_ She will live _ , something answers him, dark and gaudy like stage-lights, like the sound of an opera.  _ You can make her live _ .

“What do I have to do?” He whispers hoarsely, and jolts when he realizes he said it aloud. 

Nothing answers him. Nobody else is there. 

(It’s barely been two minutes.)

He leans back into her forehead. It’s clammy and feverish.

Like it was in his dreams. He tries to swallow back another sob and fails miserably. 

Desperation withers and curls into a beast inside of him, snapping cruel jaws full of impossible hope. Nobody else is there. Nobody else can help. 

She’s going to die. He has to do  _ something _ .

He  _ has to do something _ .

Something  _ pulls _ at him, clawing, and it feels like someone is ripping out parts of him, raw and bloody, replacing them with something colder, darker; he doesn’t  _ care _ , because he knows with every ounce of certainty that the warmth being emptied from him is instead strengthening the pulse under his hand, steadying his wife’s breaths, soothing their unborn child.

The minutes drag on. Her vitals steady; her imprint in the Force eases its thorns. Distantly, he can hear someone approaching.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispers out loud, and it’s the closest he will ever get to faith. 

He feels, even as he tears himself reluctantly from her side and watches the medics carry her away, as Obi-wan places a steadying hand on his shoulder and he leans heavily into it, that he may have just done something he will never be able to take back. 

What, exactly, he doesn’t know. 

* * *

(Gold.

His eyes are glowing gold. He stares listlessly into the medcenter ‘fresher mirror Obi-wan had dragged him to in front of, uncomprehending.

He turns to his former Master. Obi-wan doesn’t flinch when their eyes meet, but it’s a close thing. 

“What did I do?” Anakin whispers, hoarse. He already knows the answer.

“You used the Dark Side of the Force,” Obi-wan responds quietly. 

“But she’ll live.”

“She will,” Obi-wan confirms.

Anakin opens his mouth to respond; to voice a fraction of his relief, his thanks, his anxiety. He feels like somebody’s scraped out his insides and poured them back in in the wrong order.

“I’m sorry,” is what comes out instead.

Obi-wan looks at him for a long moment. “What for?”

Anakin has to force the words out. “I-- I let my emotions get the better of me. I made an embarrassment of myself. I’ve… failed the Order. I’ve failed you.” 

His voice peters off at the end, getting caught around the growing lump in his throat.

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting Obi-wan to do, exactly-- agree with him, or reprimand him, or… something. The sheer amount of emotion he’s experienced that day has made his brain fog over.

What he’s  _ not _ expecting Obi-wan to do, however, is step forward and pull him into a hug. 

“ _ Oh _ ,” he manages, bringing his arms up to return the embrace.

“You haven’t failed me, Anakin,” his former Master murmurs, and Anakin feels a wave of emotion fall around him, something glowing and honey-warm. Comfort. “You saved a life today. Regardless of the Order’s opinion, I am  _ proud _ of you.”

Lost for words, Anakin buries his face in Obi-wan’s shoulder and, for the second time that day, lets himself shatter.)

* * *

By the time Ahsoka actually makes it to the medcenter, she’s dead on her feet. Rex, at her side, hardly looks any better. 

The past hour and a half has been a blur of medical transports and bacta patches and hastily avoided questions. After some frantic deliberation, the Jedi had put the area surrounding the Chancellor’s office under emergency lockdown, and rushed the injured parties directly to the Halls of Healing under tight security.

All the while, the Force-bond she still shared with Anakin had flared with spikes of panic so intense that she’d had to shield herself from it just to be able to breathe. 

_ Force _ , she wishes she had gone with them. But the Jedi had needed all the extra hands they could get, and Obi-wan had told her to stay; so she had stayed, and resolutely ignored how it tore at her. 

After they had looked her shoulder over and given her some temporary painkillers, Ahsoka had been informed to not say a word of that day’s events to anyone until the Council deemed it safe; and then been told, not unkindly, that civilians weren’t supposed to be permitted access to the temple without supervision. 

Before she had had a chance to protest, Rex had tapped on her shoulder, showing her the screen of his comm with an indecipherable expression on his face.

**_Received @ 2341:_ ** _ Is snips with you still? _

**_Sent @ 2342:_ ** _ Yes, sir. Everything alright?  _

**_Received @ 2342:_ ** _ Better than alright, actually _

**_Received @ 2342:_ ** _ Do you guys wanna meet my kids?  _

It had caught Ahsoka so wildly off-guard that she had laughed, and then had to clear her throat to keep from crying because Force, it was just such an  _ Anakin  _ way to go about it. She had told Rex to say yes, and Anakin had given them the address, and a late-night transport and a few city blocks later they’re walking into the tiniest, most unremarkable medcenter Ahsoka has ever seen. 

Anakin grins when he sees them, looking completely and utterly exhausted and better than he’s been in months. His hair falls messy around his face, and his eyes--

Ahsoka stops dead, barely registering how Rex bumps into her shoulder. 

His eyes are bright yellow. 

“Snips?” Anakin says, his smile fading.

“Your  _ eyes _ ,” she says dumbly, too tired to form a more coherent sentence. What the kriff  _ happened _ ?

He raises a self-conscious hand to his face, uncharacteristically rueful. “Yeah, I know. Gave Obi-wan a real shock when he saw ‘em, too. I thought I was turning green or something, the way he dragged me to a mirror.”

His voice is light, but Ahsoka’s known him long enough to know it’s covering up something more serious. Her brow furrows. 

“But you didn’t Fall.” It’s a statement, not a question-- his imprint in the Force is the same as ever, loud and bright and achingly familiar. It’s still  _ him _ .

“No,” he says quietly. “I’m not sure  _ what _ I did.”

Before she can respond, a voice behind her makes her turn.

“Oh, good, you two made it,” Obi-wan says. He’s holding a cup of caf in each hand, and he walks past her and Rex to hand one to Anakin, who takes it gratefully. “I was beginning to worry. What kept you so long?”

“Weren’t you concussed?” Ahsoka blurts instead of answering. Rex snorts. 

“Oh, yes,” Obi-wan says mildly. “I was given a bacta spray for that.”

“Master--”

“Don’t bother, Snips, it’s a lost cause. I’ve been pestering him about it since we got here, and he still won’t budge,” Anakin says pointedly, and Obi-wan sips his caf and ignores him twice as pointedly.

Ahsoka sighs. It seems like things are still the same as they ever were.

“So,” Rex says, breaking the momentary silence. “Twins, huh?”

Anakin’s grin lights up his whole face. “Can you  _ believe _ it?”

“I’ve had to believe a lot of things over the last twenty-four hours, sir. I think I can handle one extra kid,” Rex deadpans. 

Anakin’s eyes crinkle in a look so fond that Ahsoka has to glance away. 

“You should have seen the look on Anakin’s face when they gave us the news,” Obi-wan jumps in. “You’d have thought they said she’d given birth to a bantha.” 

“Hey!” Anakin exclaims, no heat behind it. “I wasn’t  _ that _ surprised.”

“You know, if you had bothered to swear just  _ one _ doctor to secrecy, Anakin--”

“Oh, don’t lecture me about medical safety, Master,  _ you’ve _ hardly got room to talk.”

“I hardly think that it’s the same as--”

“You  _ are _ walking around with a concussion,” Ahsoka points out. 

“I told you, I was treated for it!” 

“That’s… not how concussions work, sir,” Rex says dryly. 

“Didn’t you two come here for a reason?” Obi-wan prompts, long-sufferingly.

“Oh, right!” Anakin says, readily distracted. He points a thumb over his shoulder, aimed vaguely down the hallway behind him. 

“The twins are taking a nap with their mom right now, but you guys can hold them as soon as they’re all awake.” His expression turns a little mischievous. “Wouldn’t want to keep them from meeting their Auntie Ahsoka and Uncle Rex, now, would I?”

“I-- no, sir,” Rex says, sounding unsure of himself. 

Anakin laughs softly. “At ease, Rex. You can call me Anakin.”

“Yes, sir-- Anakin,” Rex says immediately, which only makes him laugh harder. 

Stupidly, tears spring to Ahsoka’s eyes.  _ Auntie _ .

She ducks her head away, trying to discreetly wipe at her face and failing miserably. 

The smile slides off of Anakin’s face, his brow furrowing in concern. “Snips? You okay?”

“Sorry, I just-- I’m--” Ahsoka laughs wetly, her voice embarrassingly unsteady. “You-- we’re still family?”

“ _ Snips _ ,” Anakin says, with something akin to disbelief. “Hey, look at me.”

She does. His eyes are impossibly soft, his voice thick with emotion. “You’re always family, Ahsoka.  _ Always _ . I’m not just gonna stand by and watch you walk away again.” 

His mouth quirks up into a half-smirk. “You’re stuck with me, Snips.”

Lost for words, Ahsoka can think of nothing else to do but reach forward and pull him into a tight hug. His arms are warm and secure around her, and it feels like far too soon when she lets go. 

“And that goes for all of you, by the way,” Anakin says, turning to address Rex and Obi-wan, too. “I want you to know that. No one’s getting left behind.” 

They’re all a bit teary-eyed for a little while after that, but it’s the good kind of tears, the warm kind; not the aching-angry-bitter tears that are shared too often during wartimes. 

It’s almost surreal, how  _ good _ things seem just then. They’re a long way from perfect, of course-- Ahsoka can still vividly recall the hollow look in Rex’s eyes as he’d watched his unconcious brothers being carted away, and plenty of anxious tension still buzzes in an undercurrent through the Force around all of them-- but they’re  _ together _ , and safe, and happy in each other’s company, and Ahsoka can’t help but let herself bask in the feeling that things are finally,  _ finally _ looking up. 

* * *

A week later finds her in a different healing center, standing silently in front of a quietly bubbling bacta tank.

“Ahsoka! Hey!” Anakin’s voice calls from behind her, and she tilts her head to acknowledge him. He walks up to stand by her side. “Don’t run off on me like that! I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you, remember? I...”

He trails off, his eyes drifting to the tank. 

“Wait,  _ this _ is why you wanted to visit the Temple?” he asks, incredulous. 

“Not really.” She shrugs, uncomfortable for a reason she can’t quite name. “I wanted to keep Rex company. He still feels responsible for what happened to Fox. But they wanted some time alone, so I wandered off to… here.”

_ They _ wanted, she says, like Fox is awake and able to ask for things and not still sleeping off enough medication to put down a bantha for a month. Turned out the malfunctioning chip had done a number on the rest of his brain, too, most likely from a kriffed-up combination of faulty wiring and sheer stress. He was expected to wake up, but it would be a long time until he was fully recovered. 

It was taking a toll on Rex; that much was clear. But he leans on his other brothers, and Ahsoka is trying her hardest to make sure she’s there to lean on too. 

Frankly, it’s a miracle they had managed to get into the Halls of Healing at all. All the medics they have are working overtime to get the rest of the clones’ chips out as quickly as they can; even with Sidious dead, they’re far too dangerous to be left in.

Things are changing more quickly than any of them can keep up with. It leaves her feeling a little like nothing has changed at all.

Maybe that’s why she came here. 

“Huh,” Anakin says, breaking her out of her thoughts as he gestures to the figure in front of them. “Do they think he’s gonna wake up?”

Ahsoka is silent for a long moment. “They don’t know.” 

Maul looks the closest to  _ peaceful _ she’s seen him yet, suspended in the blue glow of the bacta. It’s almost unsettling. 

“Well, I hope he stays under,” Anakin mutters darkly, and she really can’t begrudge him for that.

She should feel the same. 

She  _ does _ , mostly; it’s not like she  _ likes _ Maul by any means, and the havoc he had managed to wreak since his return had certainly never done any of them any favors. But something still itches at the back of her mind about the whole thing, something she can’t place for the life of her. She doesn’t know what to make of it.

Maybe it’s a message from the Force, the kind she’d be instructed to meditate on if she were still in the Order.

She’s kind of glad she’s not still in the Order. She’s always hated meditating. 

“I don’t think he planned on making it out. He sacrificed himself to kill Sidious.”

“Sure, but… I mean, he kind of deserved it, didn’t he?” 

Ahsoka looks up at her former master.

“I wish I knew,” she says, and sighs. “He seemed to want to end the war as much as we did. I guess I just want to hear what he has to say now that it’s over.”

And it  _ is _ over, for the most part-- with their leaders captured and their morale in tatters, the Separatists had surrendered. The Republic is patching up the holes left by their Chancellor’s treason as quickly as anyone can find them. They still have a long way to go, but things are looking better than they have been in a long, long time. It’s relieving and terrifying in equal parts. 

That doesn’t mean everything is fixed, though. There’s plenty left to attest to that.

“If it’s all the same to you, Snips,” Anakin says after a stretch of quiet, “I think I’m gonna wait by the door. This place gives me the creeps.” 

“Have fun, Skyguy,” Ahsoka tells him, and he gives her a half-hearted smirk before turning away. 

Alone in the half-light, she’s left to her thoughts. 

Maybe she  _ will _ meditate on the strange feeling, just to see what’s there. It’s not like it would hurt anything to try. 

What might be minutes or hours later, another set of footsteps pads up to her.

“How is he?” Ahsoka asks, not bothering to turn.

Rex sighs heavily. “He’s doing alright. They said he’s showing signs of improvement. Still looks the same, though.”

Ahsoka turns to look at him. The bacta-glow washes his features in blue, casting him in sharp shadows that only serve to accentuate the tired lines of his face. “And how are  _ you _ doing?” 

Rex softens a bit at that. “About as well as I can be,  _ vod’ika _ .”

Ahsoka grins at the term of endearment, despite herself. Rex had started calling her that after that first night at the medcenter, hesitantly at first and then warmly, fondly.  _ Little sibling _ .

Rex returns her smile, but it slowly fades as he turns his attention to the tank. 

“What are they planning to do with him when he wakes up?” He asks, some unplaceable intonation behind his words. 

“Well, as soon as he’s medically sound, he’ll probably be given a trial,” Ahsoka tells him. “But I can’t say for sure. Honestly, you’re probably authorized to know more about it than I am.”

Rex hums in thought.

“Why do you ask?” Ashoka prompts, curious. 

“I… don’t know,” Rex admits after a moment. 

“He--” he starts, and stops again, his brow furrowing. “He said something about a… a brother.”

Ahsoka’s eyeridges lift slightly. “You mean Savage Opress? I was under the impression he got killed, didn’t he?”

Rex nods slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, he… said Sidious did it.”

“Huh,” Ahsoka says quietly, looking back up at the tank. “No wonder Maul wanted him dead so badly.”

“Well, he got his wish,” Rex responds. 

Ahsoka’s eyes follow a trail of bubbles as they float up past Maul’s face.  “Something makes me think he didn’t quite get all of it.”

Both of them are quiet for a long while after that. 

* * *

-

-

-

* * *

(As it often does, time stumbles forward.

Anakin’s eyes fade back to their usual blue after a few days, to the confusion and hesitant relief of their owner. 

When he’s officially offered the rank of Master by the Jedi Council, he shakes his head and smiles. The war is over; he has children to raise and a family to spend time with. Met by somewhat bewildered acceptance, he dutifully turns over his lightsaber and steps out of the temple doors and feels, for the first time in a very long time,  _ free _ .

The captured Separatist leaders are given trials. Many of them are given variations of the same punishment-- service work within the Agricorps, to be shipped off to some backwater outer-rim planet to tend to crops and menial fieldwork until the ends of their days. They all take it with varying degrees of despondency.

Notably, though, anyone who was in the Senate on the day of Grievous’s trial would swear to you there was an aura of  _ relief _ about the man. Maybe it was nothing, maybe he was just glad not to be executed; no one can quite say for sure.

After a frankly questionable amount of debate by the new Senate, all three-million-odd members of the Clone Army are granted full Republic citizenship rights. Many of the former GAR barracks are hastily converted into temporary housing while their occupants figure out, well, what exactly they’re going to  _ do _ .

Many of the clones stay with their Jedi, and many of the Jedi stay with their clones. Bonds forged in battle are not so easily broken; attachment not so quickly cast aside. They will be bound to each other for a long, long time to come. And they will prosper for it. 

Troops are pulled out; systems that haven’t seen rest in years are left quiet, barely daring to believe that the peace will hold. 

It does, and it will. The galaxy rebuilds. Time stumbles yet further along. 

There are still loose ends; just as there always will be. There is a long way to go, and many, many things left to do; many stories left to be told. 

And it’s not quite a perfect ending. 

But it is very,  _ very _ close.)

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaaaaaaand scene!!! 
> 
> some notes:  
> -"did you choose the title phantom pains as a serious title because of phantom limb syndrome or did you choose it because maul is a phantom pain-in-the-ass"  
> -yes! yes i did  
> -"wait did you seriously rip princess bride dialogue for the sidious confrontation"  
> -Yes! Yes I Did  
> -"what about maul waking up? what about FOX waking up? what about anakin's sith eyes? general grievous? what abou  
> -i have other fics planned for this verse!!!!! i will write them in time! shhhhhhh go to sleep
> 
> jokes aside, though, thank you for reading my fic! i hope you have a nice day :]
> 
> EDIT: I REALLY SHOULD HAVE BOTHERED TO VERIFY THAT MAUL KNEW ABOUT THE CONTROL CHIPS IN CANON BEFORE I WROTE IT INTO THIS FIC BUT ITS FINE. ITS FINE. [THROUGH TEARS] ITS A MINOR DIFFERENCE ITS FINE its going to bother me until the end of time that i fucked up how much of sidious's plan maul knew in canon. its a minor enough difference that it Should be fine but god. man. i guess in phantom-pains-universe maul just happened to Know More Things than canon its fiiiiiiine its fine


End file.
